Think about this the next time you’re sitting in the dentist’s chair with that goopy glop on your teeth getting an impression made for a crown: Your doleful smile soon may be in the hands of an artist.
Lloyd Kimeldorf took up dental technology after a frustrated attempt to become a successful artist in New York. Forty years later, he is still enjoying the work of constructing crowns, correcting flaws and applying finishing touches — even, on rare occasions, inserting diamonds, logos or symbols! Still applying the techniques he learned studying fine arts, he and his lab partners sculpt, shape and use colors to create a better smile for dental patients. “It takes a special breed,” he says. “You have to like detail work, be a self-motivator.”
Business name: RSU Dental /Vulcan Laboratory, 104 S.E. 101st Ave., Vancouver.
Age/Residence: 63; Northeast Portland.
Educational/professional background: I am originally from Redwood City, Calif., where my father was a government scientist. We moved to Corvallis, Ore., when I was in junior high because my father decided to teach radiation biology at Oregon State University. I graduated from high school early and left for New York to become an artist. During that time period there weren’t a lot of jobs in Corvallis, so I thought I’d try going to New York City. I was there about six months. It was hard to survive there. I just missed a getting a job at Tiffany’s for which I and about 100 people applied. Ironically, my parents had given me a one-way ticket; in the end they did pay my way back.
My father told me about the dental technology field where I could apply my art skills, thus, I moved to Portland where I graduated with honors from the North Pacific Dental Medical College in 1974.
